Home » Pascal Chimbonda’s Unique Hotel Fitness Test Prior To 2008 League Cup Final

Pascal Chimbonda’s Unique Hotel Fitness Test Prior To 2008 League Cup Final

By Joe Fish -

Pascal Chimbonda has revealed that he was forced to do a fitness test in a hotel corridor to prove himself ready for the 2008 League Cup final.

The French right-back was a regular under both Martin Jol and Juande Ramos in the 2007-08 season, but was suffering from a knee injury prior to the clash with Chelsea and had been told that he wasn’t going to play.

Determined not to miss out Chimbonda took drastic action in a bid to save his Wembley place, knocking on Ramos’ hotel room door the morning of the game, where he asked to do an impromtu pre-match fitness test.

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“I didn’t expect to play that game because the day before my knee was so swollen,” he told The Athletic. “The manager told me I wouldn’t play the game. But when I woke up at the hotel on the day of the final, the knee was fine and the swelling had gone down. I knocked on his door in the morning and said, ‘I’m ready, I can play the game’. So he told me to do a sprint in the corridor. So I sprinted in the corridor, and I felt nothing.”

Imagine opening your door to that on your way to the breakfast buffet.

Chimbonda’s knee held out for 61 minutes before he was substituted for Tom Huddlestone as we chased the game. We all remember the rest.

And I also remember shouting at my TV screen as Chimbonda walked sluggishly off the pitch as we trailed 1-0, jeered by fans inside the stadium. The former Wigan defender recalled his emotions from that time…

“I was so mad,” he told The Athletic. “I didn’t want to leave my team-mates, I wanted to fight with them. [Jermaine] Jenas pushed me in the back! I went straight to the changing room, then when we made it 1-1 I came back to the pitch.

“Then the second goal was like an explosion, we all ran on the pitch, we went crazy. It was love.”

All’s well that ends well.

Tags Juande Ramos NewsNow Pascal Chimbonda
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